Boian Mitov Do the math buddy. :) Delphi had its 20 anniversary 2 months ago - so everyone that started with Delphi 1 on release did that > 20 years ago.
Stefan Glienke Yeah... if you count by months :-) . But it's OK ;-) . So far 30% have been from the beginning. and 0 less than 5 years. I hope this changes, otherwise it indicates almost no new developers :-( .
Stefan Glienke I hope, and think, its the later. The youngsters are probably busy coding while we are goofing here, and recalling the good ol' time :-D
I used Compas Pascal on CP/M at college on a HP machine, and when my dad got TP 2.0 and 3.0 on CP/M on the Memotech MTX 512 in 1984, I was hooked. My first commercial project was porting a DEC Rainbow Pascal program to TP4 on PC-DOS in 1987. I became quite fond of TPW 1 and 1.5 - and was actually a bit upset that Delphi deviated so largely from the OWL, but I got over it :) I've used every version since then, except Delphi 8.
Alex Egorov You are not that OLD, Ha Ha Ha . Staring from pascal 3.5 much before Turbo pascal. It was when Microprocessor 6800 and 8080. Yes not 8085.As a matter of fact my programming demo was on 8008!!!!
Godfrey Fletcher Yes. But this needs to be a business/company driven action. It will not be possible to attract young developers given the current pricing. So they need to convince companies that it is worth it, those companies need to train/hire staff and by that the percentage might increase. The problem IMO is still that companies decide on market share they go .NET (MS), JAVA (Oracle), ABAP (SAP) because the decision makers do not risk anything if they make decisions everybody else makes. If they dare to be "exotic" and do inhouse OO SOA with (C++, Pascal (Delphi, Lazarus) and integration based on top of opensource or other smaller devhouse products/component sets - that might be excellent but are not the common plattform - they will be thrown out if something goes wrong, because they did not go with the "Standard". It is refreshing to see offers in the Pascal/Delphi ecospace again that are very well suited to argument for it in Business Objects environments that are C#/JAVA/ABAP dominated at the moment ... eg.
I wonder how the result would look like if a free starter version would be available? I remember a time - many years ago - where the forums where flooded with questions from users who used the free Delphi versions. It should be safe to assume these would go into the <5 years category.
Bill Meyer Your memory is way better than mine! I cant really remember much other than those big ass 8" diskettes. I think in high school is was using USCD pascal on our apple IIe computers.
I remember trying to use USDC on an Apple ][+. It was a nightmare, so as soon as one of the teachers installed Z80 cards in two machines I made the switch to Turbo Pascal. Not strictly legal, but what a relief!
About the comment on Cheap or close to free Delphi compilers, College students can purchase an academic version as long as they provide proof. It does have some limitations but for a small fee (around $100.00) you get a pretty good compiler to learn how to program.
Richard Baroniunas And with all free tools out there, students have very little incentive to spend even that much on non-mainstream tool. Most of them that are learning Pascal for one reason or another are using Free Pascal.
Dalija Prasnikar You are correct, most are using Java based on professors and alot of college students get Microsoft Office and various other tools free. The free pascal to use is Lazarus but that is hardly known in the college areas within the states.
I first used Pascal compiler in early 1972 on a CDC computer. Ran UCSD Pascal/p-system on my Apple II+. Philippe Kahn personally gave me hand written disk labelled 8"cp/m and 5.25" pcdos floppy disks at Comdex Las Vegas November 1983.
More recently Kenneth Bowles (creator of UCSD p-system) used Delphi to build apps to keep track of his digital photography image libraries :D
Half of US colleges teach java and half teach c++ in their core curriculum.
For mobile classes most colleges teach either objective-c or java depending on whether the school lab has iphone or android phone. Stanford, has the most popular itunes university ios classes, recently did the class using Swift.
Not surprised that most developers came in when Delphi was a scoop in the early days. I started using Delphi because they taught Pascal+TurboVision at my University, but I think Delphi has suffered for many years because it was stuck with Windows. Now we have FMX, but I think it is still too much work in progress for newcomers. As soon as we have a mature solution with high stability and reliability then it has a lot to offer - also for people that do not have a preference for Pascal/Delphi.
Lars Fosdal no it wasn't. I might have it somewhere. If memory serves me well it isn't ebony either. Need to go through my archives one day to complete old entries in http://delphi.wikia.com/wiki/Delphi_Release_Dates
I wrote an installation manager for my client-server application in 1999 using Delphi 5. The application itself was written in vb6. Delphi was, for me, was quite remarkable because I did not have to install any run-time files to make it work.
I then found the original version of Visual Studio to be more annoying than helpful. By the time 2010 rolled around it was increasingly difficult to do the things I wanted to do in vb6 running in a modern OS. I was bedeviled by sub-classing problems making the IDE unstable. So I bought a copy of Delphi XE. It took me 2 years to learn the Object Pascal port the application so that I could:
1) Write something more trivial than an installation manager. 2) Coordinate translating the app into 9 additional languages. 3) Create an application that doesn't look like a museum piece.
I had numerous annoyances with Delphi that I may write about some other time; but here are the positives:
1) The lack of external dependencies other than the OS and language files has reduced my support time dramatically. As a one-man band ISV, this is huge. 2) Being able to include the report designer component of Fast-Reports has increased value to my customers and allows me to say you can design them yourself or I will do it for you at the posted hourly rate. This was not a possible response using Crystal Reports; you remember, named licenses and additional fees. 3) The IDE for me is comparatively stable. Code insight and error insight are laughable and pathetic. However, most of the time the IDE does not crash.
I purchased a copy of XE7 but I am still finding little issues. On the whole, developing for Delphi for the Win32 platform has been a better experience than working with Microsoft tools. As a Microsoft Partner I get Visual Studio for free. The cost of upgrades and subscriptions for Delphi will almost assure that I venture no farther than XE7. If I am fortunate enough to live long enough, I cannot visualize being XE37 fifteen years from now.
Just casted my vote and saw the results. There are many ways to interpret. This what came to my mind :
Over 65% who voted are really old timers. That's a cause of worry. Whatever the reasons are, new guys are not getting on. I am not sure why. Maybe because Delphi has become a bit unaffordable so companies rather use other software and train their guys there. Makes business sense.
> 20 years ago :-D . That's a good one :-)
ReplyDeleteBoian Mitov Do the math buddy. :) Delphi had its 20 anniversary 2 months ago - so everyone that started with Delphi 1 on release did that > 20 years ago.
ReplyDeleteStefan Glienke Yeah... if you count by months :-) . But it's OK ;-) . So far 30% have been from the beginning. and 0 less than 5 years. I hope this changes, otherwise it indicates almost no new developers :-( .
ReplyDeleteBoian Mitov I know this is not representative but at least we can see a trend. Or maybe it's just the old geezers hanging out here :p
ReplyDeleteStefan Glienke I hope, and think, its the later. The youngsters are probably busy coding while we are goofing here, and recalling the good ol' time :-D
ReplyDeleteStarted with Turbo Pascal and never looked back!!!
ReplyDeleteI used Turbo Pascal starting with 3.0. But this poll is about Delphi.
ReplyDeleteOk Phillip Woon, Delphi 1.0 and never looked Back!!!!!
ReplyDeleteStarter with Turbo Pascal 5.x in 1989 and Turbo C 1.01 in 1989 or 1990.
ReplyDeleteI used Compas Pascal on CP/M at college on a HP machine, and when my dad got TP 2.0 and 3.0 on CP/M on the Memotech MTX 512 in 1984, I was hooked. My first commercial project was porting a DEC Rainbow Pascal program to TP4 on PC-DOS in 1987. I became quite fond of TPW 1 and 1.5 - and was actually a bit upset that Delphi deviated so largely from the OWL, but I got over it :) I've used every version since then, except Delphi 8.
ReplyDeleteFrom 1st version :) and Turbo Pascal also before
ReplyDeleteAlex Egorov You are not that OLD, Ha Ha Ha . Staring from pascal 3.5 much before Turbo pascal. It was when Microprocessor 6800 and 8080.
ReplyDeleteYes not 8085.As a matter of fact my programming demo was on 8008!!!!
Where are the new developers? EMB needs to get younger persons on board
ReplyDeleteGodfrey Fletcher Yes. But this needs to be a business/company driven action. It will not be possible to attract young developers given the current pricing. So they need to convince companies that it is worth it, those companies need to train/hire staff and by that the percentage might increase.
ReplyDeleteThe problem IMO is still that companies decide on market share they go .NET (MS), JAVA (Oracle), ABAP (SAP) because the decision makers do not risk anything if they make decisions everybody else makes. If they dare to be "exotic" and do inhouse OO SOA with (C++, Pascal (Delphi, Lazarus) and integration based on top of opensource or other smaller devhouse products/component sets - that might be excellent but are not the common plattform - they will be thrown out if something goes wrong, because they did not go with the "Standard".
It is refreshing to see offers in the Pascal/Delphi ecospace again that are very well suited to argument for it in Business Objects environments that are C#/JAVA/ABAP dominated at the moment ... eg.
https://www.tmssoftware.com/site/aurelius.asp
... or the performance of ...
http://synopse.info/forum/viewforum.php?id=2
Interesting demographics. Not really surprising.
ReplyDeleteI wonder about the outcome when this were asked on Facebook. Same for the poll about age.
ReplyDeleteI started using Delphi from version 4, but I was TP user long before that ;-)
ReplyDeleteI wonder how the result would look like if a free starter version would be available? I remember a time - many years ago - where the forums where flooded with questions from users who used the free Delphi versions. It should be safe to assume these would go into the <5 years category.
ReplyDeleteStarted with Delphi 2 :)
ReplyDeleteI started with TP 1.0 on CP/M. Been in Pascal ever since, though I have also worked commercially in C, C++ and Lisp.
ReplyDeleteI started using Delphi in September of 1994.
ReplyDeleteHmmmm
ReplyDeleteIIRC Feb. 1995.... D1 / 16-bit, started with UCSD-Pascal in 1983 on TI-99/4A with a p-code-card, funny time
ReplyDeleteI started using Delphi from version 7 o/\o
ReplyDeleteI started with TP 3 in 1987-88
ReplyDeleteTP 2 in 1984 (coming from UCSD Pascal)
ReplyDeleteI bought Delphi 1 when it was presented in The Cebit in Hannover. I used TP before.
ReplyDeleteComparing Age x Start based on people who answered here, we can ask: what version people where using about 11-15 years ago?
ReplyDeleteI started with Delphi 5.
Remember using USCD pascal with 8" diskettes. Then moved to turbo pascal, then to C/DOS, then Delphi 1.0 was released. been using it ever since.
ReplyDeleteDid a bit of Turbo Pascal (may still have the books), but started with Delphi 2 in 1996.
ReplyDeleteMike Margerum I remember trying to use UCSD Pascal with 8" disks. I mostly recall spending more time booting the system than doing productive work.
ReplyDeletehehe. Yeh same here. i think it was a CP/M system.
ReplyDeleteMike Margerum My recollection was that I booted CP/M, then booted into UCSD, which actually became the OS -- a negative feature, as I saw it.
ReplyDeleteBill Meyer Your memory is way better than mine! I cant really remember much other than those big ass 8" diskettes. I think in high school is was using USCD pascal on our apple IIe computers.
ReplyDeleteI remember trying to use USDC on an Apple ][+. It was a nightmare, so as soon as one of the teachers installed Z80 cards in two machines I made the switch to Turbo Pascal. Not strictly legal, but what a relief!
ReplyDeleteAbout the comment on Cheap or close to free Delphi compilers, College students can purchase an academic version as long as they provide proof. It does have some limitations but for a small fee (around $100.00) you get a pretty good compiler to learn how to program.
ReplyDeleteRichard Baroniunas And with all free tools out there, students have very little incentive to spend even that much on non-mainstream tool. Most of them that are learning Pascal for one reason or another are using Free Pascal.
ReplyDeleteStarted using Delphi with Delphi 1. Started using Borland from Turbo Pascal 5.0. :)
ReplyDeleteDalija Prasnikar You are correct, most are using Java based on professors and alot of college students get Microsoft Office and various other tools free. The free pascal to use is Lazarus but that is hardly known in the college areas within the states.
ReplyDeleteRichard Baroniunas All true, but in some schools they are taught that Delphi/Pascal are resume killers.
ReplyDeleteI first used Pascal compiler in early 1972 on a CDC computer. Ran UCSD Pascal/p-system on my Apple II+. Philippe Kahn personally gave me hand written disk labelled 8"cp/m and 5.25" pcdos floppy disks at Comdex Las Vegas November 1983.
ReplyDeleteMore recently Kenneth Bowles (creator of UCSD p-system) used Delphi to build apps to keep track of his digital photography image libraries :D
Web site for 25th anniversary of the UCSD Pascal and p-system - http://www.jacobsschool.ucsd.edu/Pascal/
ReplyDeleteDelphi is taught is most South African high schools. Delphi is taught in a bunch of government sponsored schools in Russia.
ReplyDeleteHalf of US colleges teach java and half teach c++ in their core curriculum.
ReplyDeleteFor mobile classes most colleges teach either objective-c or java depending on whether the school lab has iphone or android phone. Stanford, has the most popular itunes university ios classes, recently did the class using Swift.
I think we must count BPW too!
ReplyDeleteNot surprised that most developers came in when Delphi was a scoop in the early days. I started using Delphi because they taught Pascal+TurboVision at my University, but I think Delphi has suffered for many years because it was stuck with Windows. Now we have FMX, but I think it is still too much work in progress for newcomers. As soon as we have a mature solution with high stability and reliability then it has a lot to offer - also for people that do not have a preference for Pascal/Delphi.
ReplyDeleteSimon Stuart it is. Delphi started 20+ years ago. Even longer if you count AppBuilder, Wasabi, Mango and other code names.
ReplyDeleteWasn't Wasabi TPW 1.5?
ReplyDeleteLars Fosdal http://delphi.wikia.com/wiki/Delphi_Release_Dates with best regards
ReplyDeleteSimon Stuart Delphi was published 14 Feb. 1995, and today is > 14 Feb 2015, so > 20 years.
ReplyDeleteMoreover, I started working with Delphi in November 1994, a month later than Nick. So now we are both in violation of agreements signed 20+ years ago.
Lars Fosdal No.
ReplyDeleteJeroen Wiert Pluimers I count Wasabi ;)
ReplyDeleteSimon Stuart More than it should be, I am sure.
ReplyDeleteLars Fosdal no it wasn't. I might have it somewhere. If memory serves me well it isn't ebony either. Need to go through my archives one day to complete old entries in http://delphi.wikia.com/wiki/Delphi_Release_Dates
ReplyDeleteI wrote an installation manager for my client-server application in 1999 using Delphi 5. The application itself was written in vb6. Delphi was, for me, was quite remarkable because I did not have to install any run-time files to make it work.
ReplyDeleteI then found the original version of Visual Studio to be more annoying than helpful. By the time 2010 rolled around it was increasingly difficult to do the things I wanted to do in vb6 running in a modern OS. I was bedeviled by sub-classing problems making the IDE unstable. So I bought a copy of Delphi XE. It took me 2 years to learn the Object Pascal port the application so that I could:
1) Write something more trivial than an installation manager.
2) Coordinate translating the app into 9 additional languages.
3) Create an application that doesn't look like a museum piece.
I had numerous annoyances with Delphi that I may write about some other time; but here are the positives:
1) The lack of external dependencies other than the OS and language files has reduced my support time dramatically. As a one-man band ISV, this is huge.
2) Being able to include the report designer component of Fast-Reports has increased value to my customers and allows me to say you can design them yourself or I will do it for you at the posted hourly rate. This was not a possible response using Crystal Reports; you remember, named licenses and additional fees.
3) The IDE for me is comparatively stable. Code insight and error insight are laughable and pathetic. However, most of the time the IDE does not crash.
I purchased a copy of XE7 but I am still finding little issues. On the whole, developing for Delphi for the Win32 platform has been a better experience than working with Microsoft tools. As a Microsoft Partner I get Visual Studio for free. The cost of upgrades and subscriptions for Delphi will almost assure that I venture no farther than XE7. If I am fortunate enough to live long enough, I cannot visualize being XE37 fifteen years from now.
Delphi 1 - before that Turbo Pascal -- Maybe version 2? Still have a thing for that old Turbo Pascal.
ReplyDeleteJust casted my vote and saw the results. There are many ways to interpret. This what came to my mind :
ReplyDeleteOver 65% who voted are really old timers. That's a cause of worry. Whatever the reasons are, new guys are not getting on. I am not sure why. Maybe because Delphi has become a bit unaffordable so companies rather use other software and train their guys there. Makes business sense.
Nirav Kaku Easy there, youngster. We're not old timers, we're seasoned developers. 😊
ReplyDeleteHahaha bill! Hear ya!
ReplyDeleteDelphi 1 in '95
ReplyDelete